


brothers becoming

by malapropism



Series: home is where you build your heart [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Gen, Growing Up, Hogwarts, Hogwarts First Year, Holidays, M/M, MWPP Era, Marauders, Pre-Slash, Racist Language, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:57:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malapropism/pseuds/malapropism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>October is almost over, but Hogwarts doesn't feel like home for everyone - yet. The four newest Gryffindor boys haven't quite figured out how to stitch together a family, but things are starting to come together. Peter has Remus on his mind, a late-night run-in with some Slytherins gives James new perspective on Sirius, and another full moon rises. Plus, a holiday coda.</p><p>Part of my <i>home is where you build your heart</i> series, a canonically based history of the Marauders at Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. brothers

**Author's Note:**

> This story can definitely be read on its own, but I certainly wouldn't complain if you wanted to start from the beginning with the first story in this series, "the sorting."
> 
> Thanks for reading, and please let me know your thoughts/concerns/suggestions in a comment, if you like!

His scarf fluttered in the wind, lapping up snowflakes that melted on its thick wool tongue. James straddled the low stone wall that ran along the outer perimeter of the courtyard, leaning over the edge at an angle that made Peter wince.

They had slipped outside between lessons, headed for an empty corner of the courtyard, dropping their bags in a jumble. Only a few older students had braved the October chill and its light snowfall, and they curled their backs into the stone-hewn niches and took shelter under the curved archways, huddling around floating balls of blue flame, lighting cigarettes and pipes with their wand tips, searing the falling flakes in a thick cloud of warm, sweet smoke. After Charms, James’ lips had hooked into that familiar grin, a dare-with-teeth, and he had tugged Peter by the elbow out onto the courtyard.

“It’s too stuffy in here, and everyone’s sniffling all over the place. I’m sick of it. Let’s get some air.”

Peter started to point out that by standing outside for twenty minutes, they were liable to start sniffling themselves, but with James, you picked your battles.

 

They had survived their first month at Hogwarts, and Peter was starting to find his rhythm. There was something comforting about the constancy of life at Hogwarts, the timetabled classes and the regular meals and even the common room curfew, although James considered that to be more of a suggestion than a rule.

In the first weeks, fear had roiled in Peter’s stomach. If he had to sum it up, if he had to name that ever-present sense of swelling dread, he’d say that he was afraid of being found out. Some days, Peter felt like an impostor. Some days, it felt like he was just waiting for a professor to stop mid-lecture and turn an all-knowing eye on him and say, _You don’t belong here._ Like he would walk into the Great Hall for dinner one night, and the Sorting Hat would be perched back on its stool, and McGonagall would unfurl her great big scroll of parchment, and this time, there would only be one inked name: _Pettigrew, Peter._ And when Peter stepped forward, when he pulled the Hat over his ears for a second time, it would whisper _I knew I was right,_ and it would hiss _I know where you belong_. And then, _SLYTHERIN_ would echo out, and James wouldn’t even meet his eye, and Peter would be whisked away, his gold and red tie changing to silver and green with a slight _pop_ , and that would be it. Some days, Peter felt like a lie sheathed in skin.

He waited for the day when he would find James at breakfast, the center of attention, surrounded by laughing smiling bright brilliant people, _people like James_ , and there wouldn’t be room for Peter anymore.

Peter spent weeks waiting for the ax to drop.

But instead, the leaves molted from golden-green to blood-red to ash all over again, and October shivered in, colder and drier, and then snow started to kiss the spires of the castle, and the ax never fell. And one day, Peter woke up, and he wasn’t waiting to be left behind, to be forgotten, to be found out as a fraud. He woke up, and he looked around the dormitory - at Lupin’s empty, perfectly made bed, and Black’s tousled hair and tangled sheets, and then he settled on James’ still-snoring frame, and he realised, _this is home now_ and _it’s mine, I belong here._

And so now, as James pushed open the heavy wooden doors and slipped out into the courtyard, grinning up at the bright white snowflakes and beckoning for him to follow, Peter didn’t feel like he had to tread gently. He walked towards his friend, and he grinned back, and he thought, _I am home_. And then he scooped some snow off the top of a shivering gargoyle statue and packed it tightly and whipped it at James’ back, his bright, boyish laugh piercing the grey clouds hovering above. He wished he could take a picture of this moment, but he didn’t need a photograph to remember the feeling; it was indelible.

A brief tussle had ensued, snowballs ricocheting off tall stone columns and burst powder staining black robes, and then a truce was called. And James led the way to the edge of the courtyard, where the wind blew cruelest. Its harsh gusts pulled pink into Peter’s cheeks. 

James threw his fluttering scarf around his neck in another loop, stretching one leg out over the ledge - Peter’s hands reflexively twitched; he was used to catching James, to pulling him back to the ground, to steadying him. Peter nervously leaned against the ledge and peered over the edge, his stomach turning at the steep drop below. James just kept grinning, dark eyes dancing, one leg hooked on the courtyard floor, one leg swinging in the wind.

Halloween was just a week away, with its promise of a feast and a bit of festive cheer to lift the grey dullness cast by weeks of cloudy skies. James had spent the breakfast hour rhapsodizing on the merits of various pumpkin-flavored delicacies, musing on the likely menu for the Sunday table. James was eager for the end of October, and the first Quidditch match of the year - Hufflepuff versus Slytherin, slated for the second Saturday of November - but Peter had liked the quietness of this month. September had passed in blinding rush, but October felt settled, still, comfortable.

The only mystery of October had come on the first Monday of the month. James and Peter had spent Sunday in the common room, scrawling Potions essays with speedy quills and flicking drops of ink back and forth, cheerfully splattering noses and foreheads. Black had spent the day as he spent most of his weekends - wrapped in his quilt and curled on the window ledge in their dormitory, or else silent behind drawn bed hangings. Peter often wondered how and when Black did his work - and he got good marks, much to James’ chagrin, but neither boy had ever seen Black burn the night oil writing an essay in the common room, or practicing their charms coursework in the dormitory, let alone stepping foot into the library. 

Although, to be fair, the library was more Lupin’s territory, and so when James and Peter stretched their stiff limbs and rubbed bleary eyes and headed down for dinner as the sun set above the Forbidden Forest, it wasn’t particularly surprising that they had gone a whole day without seeing Lupin. 

Black had emerged from Gryffindor Tower for dinner, taking up his customary, solitary seat, but Lupin never showed. James didn’t seem to notice the boy’s absence, but Peter did, and it gave him some pause. But then the custard materialized on a shining platter, and James had muttered something deliciously funny about a gaggle of Hufflepuff girls, and the tall boy and his books were forgotten, until the time came to turn in for the evening, and Lupin’s bed remained empty and perfectly made.

“Hey, James - where d’you reckon Lupin is? Have we seen him around today?” Peter had asked, gesturing towards the bed.

Curiosity flickered across James’ face, but then he shrugged, puzzled. “Dunno…a bit strange, he’s not usually out late…”

Black’s voice crossed the room, rough and barely audible. “Said his mother was ill. Had to go home.”

James and Peter exchanged a brief look. Black rarely spoke except in short, curt tones during morning shower jockeying and lazily, flatly when called upon in class.

“Right then,” James replied, nodding in Black’s direction. But Black was perched on the window ledge, and his forehead pressed to the glass, his back to the boys. James rolled his eyes exaggeratedly; Peter stifled a chuckle.

They slept. Peter assumed that Lupin would return for their morning lessons - he didn’t seem like the sort to skive off - but he wasn’t in Transfiguration or History of Magic. He wasn’t at lunch in the Great Hall. He missed afternoon Charms, and dinner.

James was unperturbed at Lupin’s absence - “You know he’s gone to see his mum, our resident drama queen said so. Who knows how sick she is. Now come on and pass us the trifle.” - but something in Peter’s chest rattled. Sometimes, Peter felt like his bones knew when trouble was coming, when something had gone wrong. Back at his grandmother’s, sometimes he could sense a petrol bomb before it exploded, like a sort of sharp _thud_ against his ribcage. When the soldiers tore through their neighborhood with guns and ready fists, Peter could sense their footsteps before the thumping march echoed across the stone, a kind of strange buzzing in his esophagus. Peter learned to listen to his body’s alarm bells, and he honed this innate sensitivity to impending danger. It was how he survived, how he had known to stop short on the street that Tuesday, when he was just nine years old, when he was almost blown to pieces as the street caved in, a bomb bursting in water lines below the asphalt. Danger had felt like a sharp tug in his stomach, like a hook had sunk into the meat of his belly and a chain was pulling him backward, away from the soon-to-be crater.

And in the night, contemplating the emptiness of Lupin’s bed, the danger felt like teeth at his throat. But James wasn’t worried, and so Peter shouldn’t be either, and plus, that potions essay wasn’t going to write itself.

Lupin’s bed remained unoccupied.

Peter awoke that Tuesday and rubbed his neck gingerly, across the spot where his pulse raced closest to the surface, and he tried to think about toast and tea and sausages, and not that gnawing sensation in his gut that said _be careful, something’s coming._

Lupin reappeared in the afternoon, the first Gryffindor to their double Herbology lesson with Ravenclaw. Deep-set half-moons glowed purple under his bleary eyes, and although he looked like he might topple off his stool, he remained attentive as ever for the entire lesson. At the end of the lesson, he leaned heavily against the worktable as he slid to the ground, gingerly drawing his bag across his shoulders and slipping out in a pack of Ravenclaw first-years. Peter’s mouth had fallen open as Lupin had stood shakily, but he wasn’t sure what to say. Should he offer to help the boy with his bag? Should he ask after his mother? Should he just walk in step with him back up to the Tower? 

But Lupin was gone before Peter could make a decision, and by the time he returned to the dormitory after dinner, Lupin’s curtains were drawn tightly.

Weeks later, Lupin’s peculiar absence was still on Peter’s mind. He had clearly been weakened by his trip home - Peter reckoned that his mother must be on her deathbed, to have her son return to school looking like he was the one with a fatal illness - but he was, as ever, pleasantly distant, and Peter didn’t feel like it was his place to intervene. 

As he watched the snow dust James’ dark, wiry hair, with Lupin back in his thoughts, Peter cleared his throat.

“Remember how Lupin was gone back at the start of the month?”

James turned to catch Peter’s gaze, shaking his head vigorously and laughing lightly as melted snow sprayed Peter’s robes, springing from his hair.

“Come on, James - his mum was sick, he was gone for days -“

“Oh, yeah, yeah. What about it?”

“I dunno…I mean, he came back all gone over - he looked pretty sick, you know? He still sort of does, all pale and thin?”

James’ brow furrowed at this, his eyes flickering as he turned through his own memories of the preceding weeks. Lupin, always one foot out the door, standing up from the table, headed down to the library - but yes, Peter was right. He always looked tired, and he held himself like he was just barely stitched together. 

“Yeah, no, I know what you mean…But if he was sick, he’d just go to Madam Pomfrey? She’s a dear, she’d fix him right up.”

James harbored a slight crush on the young matron of Hogwarts, and often found himself swinging by the Hospital Wing for cures to various ailments.

Peter nodded slowly, because James was probably right. But something still felt off about Lupin, and it felt like the ghost of teeth at his neck.

James appraised Peter’s expression; his face was clearly stained with worry. This mattered to Peter, and while James couldn’t really see how anything could be wrong with Lupin - other than his slightly obsessive devotion to his coursework and his seeming disinterest in making friends - he wanted to reassure Peter.

“I mean, mate, his mum is pretty ill, right? That’s probably what it is. Maybe we should check in on him, try to get him to do something other than study all by himself, see how he’s doing. How’s that?”

Peter nodded with more certainty this time. “Yeah, let’s do it. Something for Halloween, maybe.”

James’ eyes lit up and he wobbled excitedly. Peter’s stomach twisted unpleasantly - it was a long, long way down - but James straightened up and murmured dreamily, “The pumpkins, Peter…”

Peter rolled his eyes. “If you’re so soft on them, mate, maybe I ought to give you some alone time this weekend…”

James glittered, and Peter - who knew James’ mind like his own, in so many ways - knew that steam was building up for one of James’ classic rambling declarations of adoration! and passion! and pumpkiny-goodness! But before James could begin reciting the sundry joys of toasted pumpkin seeds, the courtyard door clanged open, whipped furiously in the swirling wind, and a dark-headed figure, bowed against the brutal blast, emerged into the courtyard.

James twitched in interest, glancing up at the newcomer. Within seconds, a scowl twisted across his lips, tugging at his eyebrows. Peter turned around, and saw Black’s familiar snarl of scraggly curls, just as the boy slid out of sight behind a solitary column.

“Now, I’d pay to know what’s wrong with _him_ ,” James muttered in a low, curious voice.

And while his voice was coated in distaste, as the weeks had worn on, James had begun to reluctantly reconsider his initial assessment of the Black boy.

It had been easy to write him off in the early days of September, especially after the fight in the dormitory. Black was all teeth, all disdain, all distance, and James didn’t much care for that kind of pricklier-than-thou persona. And he had been cruel about Peter, and James simply couldn’t allow that. So he had snapped back.

And after that, Black made himself easy to overlook. Hard to forget, because he was always simmering just at the edge of your vision, but easy enough to disregard.

James had heard the whisperings of older students, and he knew that Black was supposed to be in Slytherin, that many people thought the Sorting Hat had made some kind of mistake, or a sick sort of joke, out of sending a Black to Gryffindor. And at first, it seemed like Black agreed with this general consensus, like he was angry about his relegation to Gryffindor. James had expected Black to slither up to the Slytherins, to turn traitor to his house and go running, tail between his legs, back to his kind. But Black hadn’t done any such thing.

Instead, he spent the weeks alone, a tight coil of stiff energy. James and Peter had long since given up trying to draw Black (or Lupin, for that matter) into their fireside games and their late-night study sessions, but James couldn’t help but keep an eye on the boy who is always alone. He couldn’t figure out why Black seemed content to be a solitary, stormy figure - picked last for partners in class, always wrapped up in the room, staring out that window, apart at meals, never getting a letter from home. That kind of separation, that distance, that _loneliness_ , made James shiver. He hated to be alone.

James is relentless, curious, magnetically drawn to the boy who seems to be his perfect opposite, and yet who sleeps just feet away.

Peter registered the distraction of curiosity that flickers in James’ eyes when Black comes up in conversation these days, when he bursts out onto the courtyard that afternoon, and he mistrusts it, just a little bit. Peter is wary of Sirius; he senses a kind of danger there, like a lump in his throat.

“I don’t think there’s anything _wrong_ with him, I just think he’s…not very nice,” Peter offered quietly. “If he wants to be all angry and alone, let him. You’ve already tried to be friendly.”

James nodded slowly, but Peter could tell that his friend hadn’t quite sunk back to earth, that he was still floating in the air, considering the boy with the grey eyes and the thin lips. James’ ever-whirring mind, at once mischievous and yet surprisingly insightful, is one of Peter’s favorite things about his friend. But sometimes, Peter wished that James would just _settle_.

After another moment, James’ eyes clicked back to Peter, and he grinned. “You’re right, mate. He’s just a puzzle, you know?”

James loves puzzles. But he’s eleven years old, and he hasn’t quite learned how to think outside of himself, and so his attention inevitably flits from quandary to quandary.

“Might do well to keep an eye on him, though,” James added, with one last thoughtful glance to the column which hid Black from view. “Now, onto more important matters. What are we going to do to cheer up Lupin…”

 

James can’t help but whistle softly to himself that Monday night, as he traipses back to Gryffindor Tower. November was already proving to be a good month. He and Peter had manages to pin Lupin in one place for a decent hour before the Sunday feast, by enticing him to play Wizard’s Chess by the fire. Lupin had been off by himself, scribbling an over-long essay on curling parchment, but James had noticed the slowing of his quill and the fleeting looks directed towards Peter and James’ rousing match. After Peter had narrowly trounced James - as much as he hated to admit it, James did usually lose to Peter - they both sidled over to Lupin. “Do you play?” Peter had asked. “Because if you’re at all decent, it’d be great to play someone who’s a bit of a challenge…” A small smile snuck into the corners of Lupin’s mouth. “I’ve never played with a magical set before, but yes, I’d - I’d like to,” he said quietly, after a moment’s hesitation. The rest of the hour was passed pleasantly - Lupin made quick work of Peter, and even quicker work of James - and the three boys had gone down to the feast together, James chattering on about pumpkins.

And even though he had earned a detention today - tardy to Transfiguration, _again_ , but he couldn’t help it, he’d gotten distracted by this particularly intriguing portrait on the sixth floor - it felt like a good sort of day. The corridors were empty - it was late, well past time to be in the common rooms - and James took his time. There was so much to love about going to Hogwarts, but more than anything else, he loved the castle itself, with its twisting trick staircases and its hidden halls. It felt _alive_ , and he loved having it all to himself.

James began to round the corner to his right, just a few moments away from the Fat Lady’s portrait, when he heard muffled voices down the other end of the long, dark hall. There’s a steely edge to those voices, and it’s the sort of tone that always makes the hair on the back of James’ neck stand to attention. Without even considering any other alternative, James turned and headed towards the noise.

He arrived at the edge of the shadows, at a curve in the corridor where the moon’s light streams in from the windows and puddles on the stone floor, illuminating four figures. James paused for a moment, trying to sort out the scene.

He recognizes the smallest boy - a first-year Slytherin, called Snape - from a shared class. Stringy, black hair and a hooked nose, small even for their age. James had never given the boy much thought - never really given any Slytherin much thought, to be honest - but it was clear that he was at the mercy of three older boys, also wearing the green and silver ties of a Slytherin, and not much mercy glinted in their eyes. One of the boys holds Snape’s wand in his wand, lazily twirling it in his fingers, with his own pointed directly at the boy, who knelt against the wall. The other two boys laugh, and sneer insults at the first-year.

James is bold and foolhardy, slow to anger on his own account but quick to rush to another’s defence. He drew his wand and steps out from the shadows.

“Leave him alone,” James said loudly. All four boys turned sharply at the sound of a bystander. The older boys grinned haughtily at the sight of another potential victim; Snape dropped his gaze back to the floor.

“What are you going to do about it, then?” asked the boy with Snape’s wand, laughing cruelly. “Care to take us all on, then?”

James shrugged. The idea that a first-year might not fare well against three older boys, especially when the boys in question are Slytherins, hadn’t even crossed his mind. He knew a few jinxes, sure, but he didn’t know much about countering spells. He didn’t even have a plan, necessarily; he just couldn’t ignore that prickling sensation on his neck, the feeling of needing to stop something bad.

Snape remained motionless, his knees drawn tightly to his chest.

“If I have to,” James replied, as if it was the most natural thing to do.

The boy with Snape’s wand laughed again. He was clearly in charge, a head taller than his friends, his light brown hair damp with sweat. “Go back to your house, and don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said to James. But James simply shook his head.

A flash of irritation darkened the boy’s face. One of his friends muttered, “Just hex him and be done with it, Mulciber. We’ve got to get back to the dungeons.”

The boy called Mulciber nodded slightly, and turned his wand on James. James swallowed quickly, an edge of fear beginning to thicken on his tongue. What was he thinking, challenging these three boys, all alone, late at night, and clearly that Snape wasn’t going to be any use…

But before Mulciber could send a hex James’ way, a cold voice called out from the shadows further down the corridor.

“Having fun?”

Mulciber and his cronies twisted around again, wands raised.

“Oh,” Mulciber crowed, “Look who it is.”

Black stepped into the moon’s light, his eyes quickly assessing the scene. James could have sworn that the faintest of grins ghosted Black’s lips, which were almost always drawn in a thin, permanent line. But as quick as it came - if it had in fact been there at all - it was gone, and Black glared fixedly at Mulciber. And then, instantly, quickly, as soon as Black was in arm’s reach of the Slytherin, there was a sharp _crack_ -

\- and James expected to see the flash of a hex, some sort of spell cast against Black, but instead, he was treated to the shock of Mulciber stumbling backwards, dropping Snape’s wand in surprise, clutching his nose with the now-free hand. Blood seeped through his fingers.

Snape’s fingers scraped across the stone, hurriedly retrieving his wand.

James took a step forward, certain that _now_ some sort of attack would come, because these boys weren’t just going to let Black _punch_ one of their own, were they?

And now, it was Black’s turn to laugh. A strange sound, unfamiliar to James’ ears, despite sharing a room with the other boy for a month’s time. “See, Mulciber? I fixed it for you.”

It was as if Mulciber’s two friends had been Stunned - James could see their shoulders freeze in surprise - but they did nothing to avenge their leader.

Mulciber’s hand fell from his nose, sticky with blood, which flowed freely over his lips. He spoke thickly, “You always were a freak, Black. Knew it even before you went to Gryffindor.”

Black seemed to consider this for a moment. “You’re probably right. Going to do anything about it?”

And somehow, improbably, impossibly, it seemed that the answer to this was _no_ , because James watched in shock as Mulciber stalked past Black, his two friends following quickly, heading off towards the stairs to the dungeons.

James shot Black a quick glance, but he held his tongue for the moment. His mind was abuzz with questions for Black, but first, he turned to Snape and offered the boy a hand.

Snape meets James’ eyes for the first time, and there is nothing but spite written across his face. He recoiled at the outstretched hand, and pulled himself up, backing away from James.

“I didn’t ask for your help, you’re just as disgusting as any dirty _Mudblood_ ,” Snape snarled, rushing out of the moon’s light, and down the shadowy corridor. Black stood silent, unmoving. For a moment, nothing happens.

James tucks his hands into his robes and straightens his spine.

His father had told him to anticipate this. And it’s not as if life before Hogwarts had been free of the snide comments, the suspicious glares, the cruel denial of his very presence at a shop counter. But for the most part, that kind of vitriol had been reserved for his brief excursions into the Muggle world. James knew that this was _racism, bigotry, discrimination_ , because those were words his parents had taught him, words they had never shied away from. But it wasn’t until his eleventh birthday that his father had told him that magic was no cure for cruelty.

“James, you’ve got to understand - when you go to Hogwarts, not everyone will like you. It won’t be like it is here, in Godric’s Hollow. Some of them will hate you, because of your skin, because you’re different. Because you’ve got a black father, and a white mother. Some of them will get over it. Some of them won’t. And it isn’t right or fair, but you have to know - you can’t ever forget - _they_ are the wrong ones, not you.”

James had nodded jerkily, and his father continued, pulling his son to his side.

“It won’t just be the Muggleborn children, either. There’ll be children from pureblood families who’ll have grown up learning to think they’re better than us. And it won’t matter to them that you’re pureblood, too. That’s why all this shite - ah, don’t tell your mum I’ve been swearing in front of you again - that’s why all of this blood status talk isn’t worth anything. It’s just an excuse for some people to say they’re better than the rest.”

The Potters had lived in Godric’s Hollow for generations, where they were beloved and respected by their neighbors. James had not yet known this kind of intimate hatred, the kind of pain that was clearly written across his father’s face as memories of his own years at Hogwarts swirled to the surface of the present. And so his father had to warn James of what might come, of what would surely come, of the racism in the wizarding world.

“But James, no matter what anyone says, you’ve just got to know it here,” he said, pressing his hand over his son’s heart, “that you’re extraordinary, and that they’re not worth you.”

“So, are you telling me to just ignore it?” James asked quietly, thinly.

His father shook his head firmly, and kept his hand on James’ chest. “Never. Memorize their faces, and some day…But for now, don’t let them see where it hurts. Don’t let them in here,” he said in a low, strained voice, gently tapping the skin above James’ racing heart.

Standing in the corridor, bright stars prickling the night sky, all silent save the shallow breaths of two boys on the edge of anger and Snape’s fading footfalls, James felt the specter of his father’s touch. 

 

James inhaled deeply, swiftly, and turned to Black, cocking an eyebrow. “Would’ve thought you’d’ve had some sneaky spell up your sleeve, didn’t peg you as the sort to go in for Muggle duelling.”

Black’s eyebrows quivered briefly; James could see the other boy considering his carefully constructed nonchalance, weighing his own next words carefully.

“Sometimes, that works just as well,” Black said finally, with a shrug, his eyes tentatively darting up to meet James’ gaze. He holds it.

A breath’s pause, and then a grin cracks open Black’s face. “I mean, it’s not like either of us knew anything to stop them. You realize Mulciber and his lot are third years, right?”

James smirks back. “We ought to, though. Learn some tricks. For next time.”

Black laughs.

The two boys head home, footsteps echoing across the stone. A companionable quiet settles. As they approach the Fat Lady, who disapprovingly tutted at the lateness of the hour, James turned back, and broke the silence.

“You’re not like the rest of your lot, are you?” he asked, although it is more a statement of fact than a question. There’s a truce on his tongue.

Black’s lips curl up again - the most James has ever seen this boy smile - and he tilts his head to the side. “Must not be, if I ended up here with a bunch of lowly Gryffindors.”

The Fat Lady’s portrait swung shut as the two boys scrabbled into the common room, headed for the dormitory stairs. They took them together, side-by-side, naturally in sync.

There were still conversations to be had - the hostility of the previous month wouldn’t evaporate overnight, brotherhood wouldn’t come with the dawn’s rise - but something was shifting.


	2. becoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> October is almost over, but Hogwarts doesn't feel like home for everyone - yet. The four newest Gryffindor boys haven't quite figured out how to stitch together a family, but things are starting to come together. Another full moon rises and Sirius begins to ask questions. But most importantly, it all ends with four boys on a four-poster bed, becoming friends.
> 
> Part of _my home is where you build your heart_ series, a canonically based history of the Marauders at Hogwarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixteen months later, here's the second chapter in this story. I had a bizarrely tough time writing this, and I'm still not very happy with it. I started on the draft right after I posted the first chapter, and I spent the intervening months picking it apart and putting it back together. I'm not actually sure _why_ it was so difficult to write, although I think it's partially because this chapter is really about moving the chess pieces around. It's more about setting up the relationships, and finally bringing all four of the Marauders into the same room. I'm super excited that it's done, and ready to share.
> 
> If you're somehow reading this story but made it over a year without reading the first stories in this series, I'd recommend that you check those out, too. And also, if you're interested in reading about a different era of _Harry Potter_ characters, I actually wrote several stories during my time off from this story about Charlie Weasley, Ron Weasley, and Luna Lovegood.
> 
> The next story in this series will be a brief set of snapshots at the holidays, and my plan is to actually have that up _before_ the holidays. After that, we'll return to a more plot-oriented story, set in the spring term.

Remus itched.

His skin tingled, blood thrumming right beneath the surface. The heavy weight of his bedclothes - normally a reassuring heft of warmth, especially welcome as the days grew chillier - left his limbs leaden. Drying his sweating forehead with the crumpled sheet, each individual strand of woven thread cut into his skin like a knife. His joints cracked. His spine twisted, every hair on the back of his neck crawling, hands tensing, almost clawlike, almost wolflike -

_No_ , Remus thought firmly, forcing his body to straighten, his hands to relax, his skin to calm. _Not yet._ It was always like this, in the days before the transformation. Like his body was eager to turn itself inside out. It felt like the wolf was already in its skin - and Remus had to will himself to remember, _this was still his skin._ For now, at least. He measured his breath, counting each inhalation _one two three four_ and exhalation _five six seven eight_ , over and over, until something approximating sleep took hold.

The moon hung heavy in the sky above Hogwarts, swollen and nearly full.

 

Remus woke the next morning - that first day of November, a new month dragging a new moon into the sky - with the iron tang of sweat on his tongue. The sun had not yet crawled full over the horizon line, and a grey sort of light infiltrated the dormitory. He swallowed careful breaths, testing the rise and fall of his ribs.

It was Monday. 

Lying in his four-poster bed, surrounded by the tender sounds of the fretful sleep of eleven-year-old boys, Remus conjured the castle in his mind. He ghost-walked through its empty corridors, plotting his path through the impending day. Every step was calibrated for economic efficiency, every movement measured in advance. 

It would be a normal day: he would make it so. He would go to his classes and quietly take notes. He would be unremarkable, and his fellow students would take no notice of the sliver of a boy in their midst. As the sun painted the dormitory windowpane and a dusty light settled over the sweat-damp sheets of his bed, Remus performed this act of anxious clairvoyance, just like every other morning, divining the day that loomed ahead. When you live hounded by the fear of being found out, of rounding a corner and encountering your full self, unguarded and unmasked and bare-toothed, you learn to plan for all contingencies.

The last moon had risen brutally. There are some moons that are worse than others; there are some moons that tug at the wolf inside even before they claim the night sky. Remus spent the weekend before the October moon hiding out in a leaky lavatory, vomiting sharp, stinging bile into a toilet basin with an ever-sighing ghost girl for company. He shivered and sweat and retched; his legs went numb; his spine grew thorns. He wrapped his arms around the porcelain, and held himself as still as he could while the world spun. 

He had managed to drag himself back to the dormitory just after dawn that Sunday, but as the morning wore on and he couldn’t get air into his lungs, he consigned himself to surrender. He edged out of bed - his senses tensing at every shadow, fear coating his throat - and pulled a packed knapsack out from under the bed. Change of clothes, a tattered book with a cover faded to illegibility, the blanket from his childhood crib. The moon wasn’t until Monday, but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t bear the waiting. Chills racked him and the moonsickness was too much to bear. He would find Madam Pomfrey, beg her to let him hide behind the starched curtains until the full moon dusk.

Remus thought he could disappear without comment, but Sirius was awake uncharacteristically early, curled in a familiar perch at the window ledge while James snored raspily and Peter slept silently. Remus caught Sirius’ eyes following him across the room, that mercurial gaze tracking his hand on the doorknob, tracing. the slope of his shoulders. Remus bit back a grimace as one dark eyebrow arched into a question mark on the other boy’s face.

“My mum - she’s really sick. I’ve got to go home and see her,” Remus whispered, warding off the question on Sirius’ lips. The lie was easy; it was practiced.

Sirius’ gaze was heavy, appraising, and for a moment, Remus thought that the other boy’s lips might be parting to form a reply. Perhaps to offer some sympathy for a sick mother or to ask after Remus’ own health. But the moment passed. Sirius merely nodded, and turned back to the window.

Remus walked slowly, unsteadily to the Hospital Wing. He leaned against bannisters which protested under the pressure. Passing the Grey Lady in a moment of lucidly sharp humor, Remus imagined that the ghost might greet him as a kindred spirit. Upon his arrival, Madam Pomfrey had immediately gone to fussing over him, brewing an extra-strength Calming Drought and murmuring quietly about illnesses of the spirit. Her hands were cool and kind against his flushed cheek. He slept for most of the day, and the night, and a good portion of the following Monday, until the sky began to purple overhead and it was time to go. The moon rose.

The wolf howled all night.

 

The first transformation at Hogwarts hadn’t been nearly so hard to bear - although he had been nervous about it, about how the wolf would react to its new prison - and at least it had come in the first days of term. No one had noticed a new boy’s absence, not in the heady rush of first classes and old friends and disappearing staircases. Everyone had been turned inward, nursing their own fears and anxieties and joys, and when he joined in classes later that week, no one seemed to even register the return of a boy the color of a bruise’s shadow.

There was one boy who seemed to be watching Remus, and the sensation made his skin crawl. The boy, who had been called _Pettigrew, Peter_ at the Sorting (and who was called curiously affectionate pet names by James Potter overbreakfast in the Great Hall - “Pass the sausages, my beloved troll, there’s a dear”) seemed innocuous enough. Pale eyes - the color of stewed green cabbage, Remus rather thought - set above cheeks that went pink whenever he was directly addressed. A curious way of carefully stretching out the words that his tongue clearly wanted to swallow halfway through. This was clearly a boy with enough worries of his own. There was a kind of familiarity to Peter’s halting hesitancy, and Remus half-wondered if Peter had a father who had whispered _be careful, my boy_ like a lullaby, like a warning. But feelings of putative kinship aside, the way Peter's eyes frequently flicked over towards Remus - that was something to worry about in as the (not-yet-full-but-getting-close) moon slid across the sky.

That one - the boy with the cabbage-colored eyes and the too-small nose, the boy who played shadow to the one who radiated like a king-in-waiting - he was one to watch, because he was always watching. He seemed to know what it meant to carry a secret’s weight. Ever careful, Remus kept his distance.

If there is anything that Remus treasures about human nature, it’s the certain fact that self-interest will win out over all else. It never takes long for people to become distracted by their own lives, their own triumphs, their own strife, and this makes it particularly easy to pass through unnoticed. James Potter, who reminds Remus so very much of boys he’d known before Hogwarts- boys who were kind and uncomplicated, boys who expected to be befriended - seems to have largely forgotten about Remus. And for all Peter’s persistent flickers of attention, even he seems to lose interest in Remus as the term wears on. Remus prefers this - or so he tells himself over his solitary porridge.

But in the last weeks of October, as the month waned and the moon waxed, something seemed to shift. A Sunday afternoon found Remus bent over unfurled parchment, describing the ruinous effects of adding porcupine quills to a boil cure potion at the inopportune moment. He kept a surreptitious eye on the progress of Peter and James’ chess match. Quill pausing over the parchment, ink swelling at the nib, he smiled slightly at the startled yelp which accompanied the toppling of James’ queen and marked the end of the match.

A fat droplet of ink slid off the quill and puddled onto the parchment. Remus’ lips curled and his eyebrows crept together as a veiny pattern appeared on the parchment, the ink pooling. But before he could blot out the error, James and Peter had appeared at his side. And within a few moments, Remus found himself seated by the fire before a battered old chess set, the essay left abandoned, ink drying on the parchment in a swollen stain. And after a few matches, he was marched off to the Great Hall for dinner, and it was all sort of _enjoyable_.

Later that evening, as he curled into his sheets, he ran the maths. Regret stole into his thoughts. Had he made an error in judgment, a miscalculation, in accepting the invitation to play with Peter and James? What draws more notice: obstinate isolation or the occasional interaction? Where was the real danger?

Remus was not quite ready to admit it to himself, but: it seemed worth it. Worth it to pretend, even just for an hour, that he didn’t need to be quite so careful.

As he drifted off to sleep, willing himself to not think of the nearly-full moon, his mind turned to the other boy in the dormitory: Sirius Black, the subject of fervent muttering during those first days of the new term. The whispers had died down by now - further proof of the triumph of self-interest; no one remains an object of curiosity for too long. But Sirius Black continued to attract attention. And while he seemed entirely unconcerned with Remus (or with anyone, for that matter), Remus still felt uneasy around the other boy. It was not the same kind of unease that ghosted his interactions with Peter, as Sirius rarely even seemed to look his way. It was an uncomfortable recognition of himself in the other boy, which raised the question: what was _his_ secret?

Remus had often been told that he was _wise beyond his years_ or _an old soul_. These comments were usually entirely innocuous, superficial acknowledgements of his quietness, of his self-contained sort of demeanor, of his predilection to neither be seen nor heard and to simply watch. But sometimes, Remus’ father would say things like _you’re too young to have to bear all of this_ and _you had to grow up much too fast_ , and Remus knew that this meant something else entirely, and it hurt. Remus knew that he is not like the other boys in so, so many ways; this is one of them.

There is something of that peculiar anachronism in Sirius Black. It seemed like it had been bred into him, as if he had never really been just a _boy_. Remus knows that feeling with a kind of brutal intimacy: the sense of not quite fitting in your own skin, of being out of place and without a place all at once. And so while he tries to stay away from Sirius Black - who, for his part, doesn’t even seem to notice the other boys in his dormitory - he can’t help but feel curious.

Curiosity is a reckless sort of feeling. It makes you do dangerous things, especially when you’re an eleven-year-old boy with a secret to hide.

 

* * *

 

There is something wrong with that Lupin boy, and Sirius has finally put his finger on it: he’s always alone.

And well, so is Sirius. But he knows why _he’s_ alone in the corridors. He wants to be alone. Lupin just looks pale and sick and he looks like he’s got a secret and Sirius _knows_ that look and he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t trust it.

By November, Sirius has taken to skipping lunch in the Great Hall. It saves him from an hour’s worth of contact, of jostling up against people who chatter and laugh and call out to their friends. The noise hurts his ears and roughens his skin. He much prefers to wander the halls during that hour, encountering no one save the occasional stray ghost. He knows that he could sit with Potter and Pettigrew, and after what happened in the corridor the other night, he thinks that he might even like that. Sometimes.

On this day, his wandering takes him along the fourth floor, and as he approaches the usually-shuttered doors to the Hospital Wing, he catches a glimpse of a boy cautiously nosing his way into the corridor. The boy turns to glance down the hall - as if he is checking to see who might be watching - and there is a startling moment of recognition as Sirius makes eye contact with Remus Lupin.

Lupin’s face goes pale, and a violet bruise peeks out from under a generous application of Madame Pomfrey’s puce-hued salve. He hurriedly smoothes the sleeves of his robes down arms etched red, and attempts to rush down the hall away from Sirius. But a limp halts his gait, and he is quickly overtaken by the other boy.

“What - what happened to you?” he said in a rush.

“I had an accident, I slipped on a Bubotuber in one of the Herbology greenhouses and there was some broken glass and I hit my head -“ Lupin said hurriedly, twisting his arm away from Sirius’ outstretched hand. “Madame Pomfrey fixed me right up, but I’m late for a lesson, so -“

“No, you’re not, we’re in the same -“ But before Sirius could finish his objection, Lupin had wrenched his arm free and started off down the hall.

Later that evening, Sirius considered telling James and Peter about what he had seen on the fourth floor: Lupin, slipping out of the Hospital Wing, covered in bruises and cuts, white as the moon and terrified. He thought about going to Madam Pomfrey, or even to McGonagall, and asking where Lupin had gone and how he’d gotten those injuries. He almost went after Lupin himself, and for a moment, he wanted to shake the boy and demand an answer. But in the end, Sirius didn’t do any of these things.

Instead, he decided to watch from afar. Later on, once all the questions have been answered and all the bonds have been cemented, the four boys will have about those early days, when they all decided to watch each other from afar. One day, it will seem so strange to recall a time when they when they were not permanently intertwined and entangled - a time when they had enough distance from each other to observe.

But for now, Sirius has more pressing things to worry about. For the first time in his life, he is on the cusp of making friends. James and Peter have started to seek him out during their free time. The three boys sit together at meals and partner up for classes and walk the halls together. Sirius doesn’t feel entirely at home, just yet; the weight of James and Peter’s shared history is sometimes stifling. For the most part, though, he feels hopeful.

 

* * *

 

As Remus climbs the long, winding staircase to his dormitory, the chorus of laughter and boyishly thin voices rises louder and louder. When he reaches the door, he briefly wonders if he should have just curled up in a common room armchair, or hidden out in an empty classroom. He is still shivering from his encounter with Sirius, and he’s been distracted by anxious what-ifs all evening. _What if he tells everyone about the bruises and the scrapes. What if he asks questions I can’t answer. What if he draws other people’s attention to me. What if he tells Peter and James to keep an eye on me. What if he tells Peter and James to stop talking to me…_

Remus hesitates at the door, and quietly listens to the sound of three boys becoming friends. 

Eventually, exhaustion wins out and he pushes the door open. And just as he fears, the room falls briefly silent. James, Peter, and Sirius are sitting on James’ bed. James is sprawled across the length of his four-poster, propped up on a pillow. Peter is curled at the foot of the bed, and when Remus walks into the room, he gives a small wave and a quick smile. Sirius sits cross-legged at the head of the bed, and his spine straightens when he sees Remus.

James breaks the silence, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Remus, where’ve you been? We’re talking about the hols - even though they ages away, I can’t wait for the term to be over already - have you got plans? Going home?”

Remus smiles politely. “I’m actually staying here for the holiday - my dad’s got a trip for work.”

“Aw, that’s a shame. You might be able to stay with mine, you know. My mum’s always after me to bring more people over - she hates an empty house - I can ask them, if you like.”

Before Remus could reply with a careful _no, thank you_ , James had barreled on. “Anyways, we can sort it out later. Right now, you can help me win a bet. Peter has challenged my good name, and I’ve accepted. So, here’s the question: what’s the best way to levitate Flitwick’s glasses right off his nose, and once I’ve got them off, what should I do with them. Sirius thinks I should put them out of reach, on that really bizarre stuffed bird he’s got hanging, but I feel that’s a little unimagined. Any thoughts?”

Remus feels pinned by the force of James’ good-natured cheer. The walls he built over the past months are crumbling, and the distance he had carefully maintained has vanished. He can’t bear to ignore James but he can’t afford to befriend him. Not now that Sirius has apparently decided to forego his solitary ways, not now that Remus would be the only one left out.

_Maybe_ , Remus thinks, _I could hide in plain sight_.

Maybe having friends wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they’ll ask fewer questions if they think they already know all the answers.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

Maybe he should be afraid.

But as he looks at the scene before him - three boys sitting on a bed, laughing and talking, welcoming him in - he isn’t afraid at all. For once, Remus Lupin feels like an eleven-year-old boy who has finally been let into some secret club, finally made to feel _normal_. And he likes it.

There are still secrets, of course. James and Peter are satisfied with his monthly trips home to visit his sick mother, and Remus manages to come up with somehow plausible explanations for his various injuries. Sirius never comments on these conversations - never wishes his mother well, never asks about a bruise. In fact, Sirius doesn’t speak to Remus very often at all, except for the occasional _Pass the cream over, will you_. Sirius watches Remus closely, carefully, and Remus’ skin keeps itching under the weight of that gaze. But for the most part, life begins to unfold in an unexpectedly normal fashion, and Remus can’t quite believe his luck.


	3. coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One year later, here we are. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this, and especially to those of you who've commented - your words have kept me going.

The world had been erased overnight.

The snow fell fast and thick, obliterating the horizon line until there was no discernible difference between sky and soil. All the now-familiar details of the Hogwarts grounds - the glassy surface of the Black Lake, the Forbidden Forest’s long shadow, the perfectly sharpened castle turrets, the flag-festooned Quidditch pitch - they were all gone, lost to depthless white. The world was unmoored, bright and blank under the morning sun.

From the window of the Owlery, Remus could just barely make out the bowed backs of the homebound students, struggling along the path toward the horseless carriages. Their robes billowed in the wind and the snow covered their tracks as soon as they took a step, quickly erasing any sign that they had once trod the path.

Remus could not see the carriages for the snow, but he knew they were there. In the fall he had shivered his way past them, caught up in an inarticulate uneasiness. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen when he drew too close, as if someone (or something) had breathed on his skin, hot and humid. Remus was privately grateful to avoid the carriages for another few months.

Hogwarts was an old and strange place and as such he experienced many similar moments of dis-ease. Walking to class, Remus could feel the magic of those hallowed, haunted halls prick his skin like so many tiny sharp needles. It often seemed that he was being watched, and of course, he was. The walls seemed to have eyes.

When he had come to call on their little cottage above the sea, the headmaster had promised to keep his secret. But of course this was the beginning of all subsequent betrayals: this, the day that Remus’ world widened beyond four stone walls and a high cliff bluff. Because once the secret had been told, it could not be taken back, no matter how desperately he scrabbled for it. Everything that was to come would unspool from this very moment. But the promise of Hogwarts - of magic - was too great to refuse, and so, for better or for worse, Remus entrusted himself to a stranger called Albus Dumbledore.

With Lyall’s refrain in his ears - _be careful, careful_ \- Remus watched the faces of his new professors and his fellow students. He caught something like pity in the eyes of his Transfiguration professor, a woman named Minerva McGonagall who could turn herself into a cat, and he wondered for the first time if Albus Dumbledore had betrayed him. But the days passed and he was seemingly allowed to continue on with the farce, to wake with the others and eat in the Great Hall and walk the school halls, like he was not some present danger. In between the moons he carved out a kind of peace for himself. And perhaps this was the problem - he was growing comfortable, carelessly so…

Below, a robed figure shot a spray of purple wand sparks into a drift, splattering a gaggle of students with a great wave of snow. For a moment, Remus fancied that the anonymous prankster might have been James, accompanied as ever by Peter. He wondered if they laughed as they shook melted ice from their sleeves, trudging through the waist-high snow as they chattered about Christmas pies and warm fires. He could almost hear their now-familiar voices echoing up the stone. He watched as those last remaining stragglers were swallowed up by the relentless falling snow, and soon the world was white again.

An unbidden memory, edged with snow-crusted garland: a toy store in Swansea and the plastic red frame of an Etch-a-Sketch. Remus was five years old and they were in a rush. His hand curled in his mother’s palm, straining at the grip, pulling towards the window display, to the cheerfully beleaguered shopkeeper, to the Muggle toy that worked like magic.

“Another day,” she had said. “We’re going to be late!”

Remus could not remember where they had been going and the memory disintegrated. It must have been Christmastime, because he remembered the fairy lights.

All but four students had gone home for the holiday. Remus was the only first year to remain behind; two Ravenclaws in their NEWT year had also stayed at the castle, along with a third-year Hufflepuff that he thought was called Fawley. The Owlery was nearly empty, and only the school owls were there to nip at Remus' wrists.

“Hello there,” he said quietly to a large barn owl. “Do you mind?”

The owl replied by way of a stately assenting hoot. Remus tied his hastily scrawled letter - _Da, I thought it’d be best to stay here for the hols, I’m safe, Happy Christmas, your son_ \- to its outstretched leg.

He had put off the letter until the last moment so as to avoid their usual recursions. It always came down to this: Remus would suggest the logical course of action, and Lyall would hem and haw but eventually he would say, _If you’re sure, I imagine you’re right, you’re such a good boy, you know, such a smart boy._ If Remus had written any sooner, Lyall would have insisted that the new cottage’s basement would be ready in time, that Remus would be just fine, that he shouldn’t be alone on Christmas, and then Remus would have to say, it’s really no trouble, I’d rather stay, it’ll be safer, it’ll be easier. And then Lyall would agree, as he always did.

But this time, Remus couldn’t stand to play their old game, and so he put off the letter until the conclusion was unspoken and inevitable.

Remus gave the barn owl a treat and watched it disappear into the snowfall. 

 

James had ambushed Remus on no less than three separate occasions before the end of term in a spirited attempt to drag him home for Christmas. His pitch was usually just a string of festive sounding activities, shouted at an escalating volume with mad glee, followed by some characteristically inept emotional probing. At one point, James asked Remus if he was Jewish, to which Remus replied, “Well, my mum, but that’s not - “ and James had immediately interrupted to inform Remus that a) he was perfectly fine with Remus’ being Jewish, and b) couldn’t Jewish people enjoy a little holiday pie?, and c) something incomprehensible about his having several candles Remus could use for that holiday, Hanukka-something. Remus just shook his head, charmed and resigned all at once. He was beginning to learn that with James, it was best to plaster a bemused smile on your face and let the words wash over you. Eventually, he would either get distracted or tire himself out. Peter seemed to have mastered the art of this as easy as breathing.

On the last night of term, as he and Peter packed up their trunks, James made one final push to change Remus’ mind.

“Oy, you sure you want to stay here for the hols? It’s bound to be really depressing, mate. My parents have got loads of room, and they love having people at the house - I told you about the sledding, yeah, and there’s an absolutely massive snowball fight every year in the village, and we don’t even go to church, and oh, you could borrow a broomstick - I’ve never seen you fly, not really, you like it though, right? - we’re going out tomorrow, it’s going to be excellent,” he said in a giddy rush, stretching onto his tiptoes in excitement, his arms thrown wide. 

It really was impossible to not be charmed.

“I’m looking forward to some peace and quiet,” Remus said firmly, a slight smile playing across his lips. “It’ll be a nice change of pace from you lot.”

“Don’t lump me in with the likes of him,” Peter said, folding up his pajamas.

James pulled his mouth into a look of mock chagrin. “Oh, I am so sorry, Professor Lupin! Have we been keeping you from your studies? Disturbing you from your very important work?”

“You’re disturbing all right,” Peter said. “Leave him alone, James. You’re never going to finish packing at this rate, which means you’ll leave it ’til the morning, which means _I’ll_ be packing your trunk while you lay about, moaning about the sun’s blinding rays or something. And then we’ll be late to the train, and we’ll miss your mam’s tea.”

James jumped up onto his four-poster bed, brandishing a pair of mismatched socks in Peter’s direction. “Blasphemy! The train wouldn’t dare leave without me, it is my chariot and it will wait!”

“Sure it will, but let’s not test it,” Peter replied, agreeably exasperated. Remus rather thought Peter a saint for putting up with James’ more exuberant displays.

James slid to the floor and began rummaging under his bed for the errant socks. Remus’ holiday plans (or lack thereof) were mercifully, finally dropped. The next morning, he left his curtains shut as the boys thundered downstairs. James hollered out a goodbye, which was immediately followed by a round of counterproductively noisy shushing from Peter. Remus pretended to sleep through the racket.

He waited until the tower went quiet before he threw the curtains open. Pale light streamed in through the window, carrying an improbable winter’s chill along the beams.

 

James and Peter clambered out of the last of the carriages and raced breathless toward the scarlet train. Once they’d boarded, James insisted that they look for Sirius, who had left the dormitory well before James had deigned to rise. (As predicted, Peter had finished packing his trunk, and consequentially they had missed breakfast. He thought himself a right martyr for not deploying a choice _I told you so_.)

Eventually, they found him. Sirius had a compartment to himself at the very back of the train. He had pressed his forehead against the chilled windowpane, looking improbably world-weary for a boy only freshly twelve, and he jumped slightly as Peter pulled back the creaky compartment door. 

“Potter, Pettigrew,” he said, a little stiffly. Old habits die hard.

“Potter, Pettigrew,” James mimicked. “It’s like he hasn’t seen us in our knickers.”

“Speak for yourself,” Peter replied. “Hullo, Sirius.”

James and Peter settled into seats opposite Sirius. They bantered easily, complaining about the lengthy tome on magical fungi assigned by Professor Slughorn for the holiday, negotiating complex trades for various sweets purchased from the trolley witch, and reminiscing about a particularly memorable point in the Ravenclaw - Gryffindor match the week previous. As the train hurtled toward London, Sirius lapsed into a fidgety sort of silence and the conversation lagged. James gamely filled in the gaps with a rambling monologue on the various sugary concoctions he planned to wheedle out of his parents during the holiday, and all the mischief that he and Peter would get up to, and how excited he was to see Godric’s Hollow again. Home, at last.

Peter found himself inescapably caught up in the tornado of James’ excitement. If not for the Potters, he would have likely been stuck at Hogwarts alongside Remus. He had been almost relieved when his grandmother made no mention of the holiday in her terse letters; he knew it was because she couldn’t afford his fare from King’s Cross, and he had dreaded explaining this to James, who would have done something horribly kind, like offer to pay his way. (The thought that he might just lie to James about this did not occur to Peter. Lying to James was, at this present juncture, improbable.)

Sirius smiled at all the right moments, lobbing dry rejoinders whenever James stopped to catch his breath, and sniggering not a bit uncruelly when a pumpkin pasty burst on Peter’s chin, but his thoughts strayed forward.

Reality awaited him at the end of the line. He had received exactly two owls from his parents during the term. In the first, his father wrote to say that he expected Sirius to make a particular effort to ingratiate himself with the right sort, and that while his Sorting was undeniably a setback, it changed nothing. While Sirius had partially expected his parents to storm the castle upon hearing of his Sorting, this was in fact the worst possible reaction. Being Sorted to Gryffindor had felt like this cataclysmic reordering of the universe, but according to his father, nothing had changed. Blood was blood was blood. He was still a Black.

The second letter had been in his mother’s hand; Sirius could not recall the last time he’d seen her with a quill. The ink shivered on the parchment but the message was clear: Sirius was expected at Grimmauld Place for the holiday. Kreacher would meet him at the platform; he was not to delay.

As the train hurtled toward Platform 9 3/4, a tinkling bell sounded the fifteen minute warning. Peter and James changed into Muggle clothes - “Dad wrote me about this new record shop in North London and he says we’ve got to take the Muggle train to get there!“ - but Sirius just picked at the collar of his black robes. 

“You’ve got a brother right, Sirius?”

Sirius looked up at James blankly for a moment before answering; clearly, a conversation had continued without him. “Yes. Regulus. He’ll be at Hogwarts in a couple years.”

“Do you get on with him?” Peter asked curiously.

“Mostly.”

“Lucky,” James said. “Oy, lookit, we’re about to - “

The train roared into the station. On the platform, parents waved merrily to the tune of the enchanted whistle. James and Peter rushed to the other side of the car, pressing their noses to the glass and waving back at the crowd. Sirius remained where he was. 

They had arrived.

 

Remus woke on Christmas morning to a small pile of presents. He had expected none and was thus left with the impression of immense abundance.

The nearest package was done up in plain green paper and tied with twine; he immediately recognized his father’s handiwork. He gently unwrapped the package, careful not to rip the paper or unravel the twine, and revealed a handsome leather-bound journal. It was soft to the touch, a pleasing deep burgundy with bronze clasps. A square of heavy parchment fell out of the wrapping paper.

_Happy Christmas,_ read the card. _I have enchanted this to your touch - and should someone magick open the lock, the pages inside will appear blank. I thought you should have some place all to yourself. With my love._

Remus ran a tentative finger down its spine and felt the familiar crackle of his father’s magic, like the last sharp sparks emitted from a dying ember. He set the journal aside and gave the remaining packages a more careful eye.

A rectangular box wrapped up in red paper with a gold ribbon proved to be fancy chocolates from James’ mother. She included a note on soft cream paper, wishing him a happy holiday. _We so look forward to meeting you_ , she wrote. _James tells us all about you._

He shivered a little, overwhelmed at the thought. The chocolates smelled vaguely of citrus.

Next he opened a flat, squarish parcel wrapped in pages from what looked to be a months-old copy of the Prophet. James’ messy scrawl covered the underside of the paper, thick black letters obscuring the classifieds. _Peter and I got this at a record shop in London that sells Muggle stuff too and the shopkeeper said this was the best. I left my radiogram under the bed and you can use it see you soon!_

The cover of the record featured a painting of a bent-backed man hung on a peeling wall. There was no name or title on the record; Remus set it aside.

Lastly there was a thin black box, and an envelope addressed to _Remus J. Lupin_ in curling green script. He opened the envelope first.   

> _Dear Mr. Remus J. Lupin,_
> 
> _You are cordially invited to join those of us who remain at the castle for this most festive of holidays at half past one for a Christmas repast in the Great Hall. Fancy dress most highly recommended._
> 
> _On this happiest of days, I remain -_
> 
> _Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_
> 
> _Professor and Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Remus thought, not for the first time, that Dumbledore was a very strange sort of wizard. Next, h e picked up the black box and regarded it curiously. He lifted its lid and then dropped the box as if scalded.

On a bed of black velvet lay a long silver chain with a charm of the same metal in the shape of a howling wolf. The very sight of it burned.

 

Sirius woke up to find a most insistent screech owl doing its best to shatter his bedroom window.

“Bloody hell-blasted excuse for a pair of wings,” he muttered, jumping out of bed. “What. What do you want.”

He unlatched the window, letting in the bird and the chill. The owl darted around the room for a few skittish moments before dropping a newspaper-wrapped package on his bed. Stopping only to nip his ear reproachfully, the owl darted right out the open window. Sirius glared ineffectually after its flight before shutting the window with more force than strictly necessary.

“What is this,” he said to himself, picking up the thin parcel. He unwrapped it to find a Muggle record featuring a somewhat shocking black-and-white photograph of a man’s…well, jeans, he supposed, from the belt buckle down. Red print letters read _The Rolling Stones_ and _Sticky Fingers_ , which he supposed formed some combination of the band’s name and/or the record’s title. It was unfamiliar to him, and thrillingly so. He had absolutely no idea who would have sent him this sort of thing andits presence in his parents’ house was entirely, wonderfully illicit. 

He looked for some kind of note and found it on the underside of the newspaper. _Happy Christmas Black,_ the messy scrawl read. _If you can get away come to Godric’s Hollow on Sunday at 3 o’clock. Bring the record. James (and Peter)_

“Young master Black,” Kreacher’s voice echoed from the landing. The house elf had a nasty trick of somehow anticipating his every move. “Your presence is required in the drawing room.”

Sirius hurriedly stuffed the record under his bed and braced himself.

 

“Do you reckon he’ll come?” Peter asked.

It was half past two and the sun had clouded over. James and Peter lay on their backs in James’ room, spread out on the floor and surrounded by assorted holiday detritus. Fizzing Whizzbees boxes were stacked up at Peter’s feet and there was a smudge of chocolate on James’ upper lip. They had set up camp in the living room on Christmas Day, emerging only for Mr. Potter’s cooking - “My wife would scald water if I didn’t handle the housekeeping,” he said merrily, tying on a conspicuously frilly apron as Mrs. Potter beamed fondly - and the annual Boxing Day pick-up Quidditch match at the local park. Children as young as six and adults as old as one-hundred-and-twelve mounted their brooms, fighting valiantly for a trophy that had not been seen since 1912. The sides were nominally east versus west, but there was a fair bit of boundary-fudging, as each side vied for the fittest and/or least inebriated players. James’ mother, who had been a Beater for the Pride of Portree after Hogwarts, had been captain of the west-end team since before James could remember. She, like her son, took the game very seriously.

“I dunno,” James said lazily. Above his head, a magicked model of a Ukrainian Ironbelly roared. “Go put another record on, will you?”

“Alright, what do you want?”

“How about the Gnashing Ghouls’ latest?”

“Aw, I hate that, it just sounds like a load of noise - “

“You have absolutely no taste to speak of, Peter. I expect you’ll want some Top-27 warbler, like a second-rate Celestina - “

“Boys!” Mrs. Potter called. “I believe your friend has come to call.”

James jumped up. He thundered down the stairs, leaving Peter no choice but to follow. Sirius had arrived.

 

* * *

Remus had inspected the black box - its offending contents safely shut away on that bed of velvet - countless times, but it remained inscrutable. No sign of its origins - although its intent seemed threateningly self-evident.

His first impulse had been to take the black box straightaway to Dumbledore, but he had quickly dismissed this as foolishly hopeful. His presence at Hogwarts was contingent on the keeping of his secret. Dumbledore was just as likely to send him away as he was to solve the charm’s riddle. For this same reason, he knew that he could not write his father about the gift either. 

Perhaps, he reasoned, there was some other explanation for this cursed gift. Perhaps it was not a threat, but some strange accident, some curious coincidence…But no, that line of thinking was even more foolhardy that expecting to be saved by Dumbledore, or comforted by his father. Someone knew his secret, and they wanted him to know that he had been found out.

In the face of this - his greatest fear - Remus was consumed with only one thought: he did not want to leave Hogwarts. He would not leave Hogwarts.

In the months previous, he had learned these halls like the lines of his own palm. Their twisting ways, their hidden secrets, all their faint possibilities and prophetic promises. Having assumed all his life that these doors were closed to the likes of him, he could not bear to be cast out. He wanted this for himself, fiercely.

At his very core that stubborn, reckless resilience roiled up - likely the integral trait that had seen him Sorted to Gryffindor in the first place - and he recommitted himself to the course. He would not be deterred.

He had clearly not been careful enough. Or rather, perhaps he had been too cautious, thinking that he would be kept safe by distance. He had been so busy holding the others at bay, he had not realized that this would in fact draw more attention to his strangeness, his out-of-placeness.

Someone had seen that he did not belong. They could not have any proof of his secret - they could not know, not with real surety. He was convinced of this. If they really knew, they would have turned him in and ended it there. There was still time. Time to prove them wrong - time to play the part of a normal wizard in his first year of school - time to be unremarkable. When James and Peter and the rest of the school returned, he couldn’t give any sign that he’d been rattled. He could not afford to be afraid.

Someone was watching him, and he was going to watch for them. But he wasn’t going anywhere.

He set the black box at the back of his dresser drawer and put that Muggle album on James’ radiogram, which he had pulled out that morning.   

> _"Oh, dance in the dark of night…sing to the morning light…the dark lord rides in force tonight…and time will tell us all…"_

  

Outside, three boys walked up the icy path to the castle, laughter heralding their arrival. They were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remus receives Led Zeppelin IV for Christmas, and the lyrics at the end of this chapter come from "The Battle of Evermore," which you can check out [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-21AtiWV3TE).
> 
> I'll never stop writing this story - as I've mentioned in the comments, it really is plotted out through to the bitter end - but it's going on hiatus for a while. It might seem silly to say such a thing - it took me over a year to post this last chapter! - but I want to be upfront with y'all. I'm writing this from the U.S., and I'm planning to devote more energy to pressing work in our current political climate. I will finish this damned thing, and I may very well post the next installment sooner than I think - but for now, we'll leave it here. Before I write more in this series, I'll also be editing certain sections from "letters from home" to better reflect the direction of this story.
> 
> Please do comment as you see fit - one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that your comments keep me writing, really and truly. And as always, come find me on [tumblr](http://http://ababelofprose.tumblr.com/).


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